Whatever It Takes
by glassmidnight
Summary: Camilla Shepard has been through a lot in her life and has taken it all in stride. What happens when something starts to break her? Rated T for language and very mild suggestive themes. FemShep, Earthborn/Ruthless, Infiltrator.


_Author's notes: I, of course, do not own Mass Effect. Thank you, Bioware. Inspired by a friend who likes teasing me about my love of Shenko_. _A little background on Camilla may be in order. she's a Ruthless background, but played through ME1 greatly Paragon. This story is meant to explain her change in personality in ME2._

The light flashed green on the metallic device.

"Shit."

Commander Shepard tossed the stupid thing on her desk. It clattered to the floor and skidded back to her, hitting her boots and pulsing the word _positive_ up at her.

It was astounding how quickly that one word could bring her back so completely to being seventeen again. The free clinic that one of her gang sisters took her to smelled like sweat and cheap antiseptic. There wasn't enough medigel in the place to heal a single gunshot wound, let alone the ten or twenty Camilla saw every week, but it was good enough for dehydration and stomach viruses and they didn't ask too many questions. Cam had been puking all week. Kenzi had finally decided to bring her to the clinic without telling the other Reds. Cam just wanted to get a few pills and get the hell out of that place before anyone saw her, but when the lady stuck her finger to test her blood, Cam's day got a hell of a lot more confusing.

Seventeen is a terrible age to get pregnant. She had been seeing one of the other Tenth Street Reds, a guy called Fox, for a few months. It was nothing serious, but they were having fun -- nice to have something to look forward to at night, at least. But the clinic woman's scanner blinking _positive _on its scratched screen was definitely not fun. Kenzi patted her arm and told her not to worry. Just a few years ago, another Reds girl had gotten knocked up and they took care of it, no problem.

So it had been off to the little side room that Cam was pretty sure was normally used for pulling teeth to have her own little problem taken care of. She never told Fox, but the next year she was staring at Earth from an exit vector, with no Reds around.

Twenty-nine isn't the greatest age to get pregnant either, but there was that tester again, flashing green.

Camilla sat down heavily on the bed and stared at the walls of the Normandy. How the hell did it even happen? The last time she'd had…Ilos. That night before Ilos almost a month ago was the only possible explanation. She had been on contraceptives, but must have stopped taking them in the aftermath of Virmire. And yes…there they were. An entire prescription left unopened on her desk. Suddenly, she realized what being pregnant meant for her…and for Kaidan Alenko.

She was ridiculously, inanely happy. Kaidan had taken her from being cold and brutal to actually caring about people again. There was no way she could keep this baby, not with the Reapers and the Alliance regulations, but imagine if she did! The lieutenant would want her to. She could have a family that she could trust, could count on, and provide for. Kaidan would be a great father – not like her own druggie dad, not like a nineteen-year-old gangster named Fox – and she would be able to take of them all, if she could stop the Reapers. After a few minutes, Shepard couldn't even bring herself to be upset about the word _positive_ on her cabin floor, and had already started trying to figure out the best course to plot when she heard Joker on the intercom announce that the Normandy's stealth systems were engaged. She stood up and started changing into her armor, smiling and happy for deciding to try to build a family, even amidst the struggle. Damn the Alliance if they didn't like it.

The doors leading out onto the main crew deck were just sliding open when the Normandy banked hard and the commander staggered sideways, adrenaline already leaking into her blood. Explosions shuttered through the craft and Camilla knew that there was something horribly wrong. She sprinted over to the console to send the distress beacon. Smoke and shouting were already filling the spaces of her ship. She punched in information on the console and then the beacon was away, and her helmet sealed on as she heard Lieutenant Alenko run up behind her.

The next several minutes were a blur. The Normandy crumbled around her and she sent Kaidan off to evacuate the crew and turned her attention to saving her stubborn pilot, still trying to save their dying ship. Camilla was in full battle mode, fully the Commander Shepard that the galaxy trusted to get the job done, no matter what. She was nearly in the escape pod, and Joker was already through. He looked awful, his face full of misery and pain. Camilla was sure that losing the Normandy hurt Joker worse than the fracture she had given him yanking him out of his seat.

A blast from the foreign weapon tossed her away from the pod. Molten metal blocked the path back, and in an instant, she knew what she had to do. Sometimes soldiers had to make sacrifices to do things right. Camilla hit the emergency override button and sent Joker spiraling away from the wreckage before she too spun out, away from the anchor of the Normandy.

Shepard felt a rush of awe at the beauty of the stars sprinkled out across her view and realized with a sickening jolt that her suit was rapidly leaking air and euphoria from oxygen deprivation had already begun to affect her. Desperately, she tried to stem the flow of air, but she knew it was useless. She watched the escape pods race away and tried to focus on the fact that Kaidan and the others were safe rather than the fact that she was dying. As she floated, her thoughts turned to the tiny person taking shape within her.

_I'm sorry, baby…_


End file.
